


You're not Max

by seaweedredandbrown



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Kaiju, Drunken Shenanigans, Fluff, M/M, Meet-Cute, One Shot, Short & Sweet, Wordcount: 5.000-10.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-23
Updated: 2016-11-23
Packaged: 2018-09-01 19:27:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8635240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seaweedredandbrown/pseuds/seaweedredandbrown
Summary: Okay, so maybe Max did not purr, maybe Max did not knead, but Newt was really drunk, and this had to be the right house, right? Right.





	

‘Just take the key under the flower pot, mate,’ Chuck had said, ‘get into the house, crash on the couch, and we’ll drive you home tomorrow when we get back.’

Well, there had been no key under the flower pot.  
Come to think of it, there had been no flower pot either.

Newt stood in front of the door, considering his options.  
He reached out a wobbly hand and half-heartedly turned the handle, which did not move under his gentle pressure.

The door was locked, then.  
Not that it was surprising. It was supposed to be locked. That was why Chuck had told him about the key under the flowerpot: so that Newt could open the door. That was locked. Thus requiring a key. That was under the flower pot.  
But there was no key under the flower pot, since there was no flower pot to begin with.

That was a problem.

Newt leaned on the front porch column he absolutely did not remember Chuck having in front of his house and tried to stare the door into submission.  
That did not work.  
He whined, tried to forget the disgustingly sweet aftertaste in his mouth, and tried different approaches: pulling the handle stronger, pushing the handle, sweet talking the handle into turning. The door steadily refused to budge.  
That was alright, yeah.  
He was drunk enough not to remember how to open a door. No big deal. That was the sort of things that happened to him. That was his life, now.  
Door one - Newt zero.  
Cool.

An eternity later, he had tried threatening the door, appealing to the door’s generous nature, crying all the tears of his body on the doorstep and rubbing his cheek all over the lock. (It had seemed like a good idea, but now his face was cold and vaguely smelling of rain and wet metal).  
Newt was starting to admit that, alright, the door might not be on his side at all.

Cool.  
Doors were entitled to their own opinions; they had the intrinsic right not to agree with Newt wanting to open them.  
Newt just needed to find that damn key. Yes. The key was the… key, ahah. The key was the key. Oh my god, he was absolutely even more hilarious when drunk. He allowed himself a minute or two of self-appreciative giggling, still leaning on the front porch column that should not have been there - but then, such details mattered little: people changed the layout of their house all the freaking time - before making the conscious effort to go back to reality and try to open that fucking door.

There was a… There was a logical explanation to all this, he was sure of it. That Beckett Bastard, in his never-ending quest to get on Newt’s nerves, had probably gotten rid of all flower pots in the neighbourhood and added columns to his front porch just to spite him. That’d be totally his style. And then he would have hidden the key somewhere else… maybe Newt could look in the dumpster?  
Nah, he wasn’t drunk enough to look in the dumpster.

He was really drunk though, the-ground-is-lava kind of drunk, I-hate-myself-and-so-do-my-future-self level of drunk, I-need-to-crash-on-a-couch-in-the-next-five-minutes-or-so-help-me state of drunk. That was why he had left the bar - it had been a bar, right? They had given him liquor, at least - and swung his way to Chuck’s house… which should have had a flower pot near the front door with a key underneath.  
The fact that it had not should have annoyed him more than it did, but then, this was nothing that a good argument with Raleigh wouldn’t fix. What Newt was more preoccupied about, right at that instant, was that there was a couch on the other side of that door, a couch that he very much desired to get acquainted with, as horizontally and comfortably as possible.  
(A glass of water would be nice too, but in his drunken stupor he still retained enough sense not to trust himself with anything possibly involving smashing said thing to smithereens).

Okay, so, the door would not open.  
That was a problem.  
He could try crying.  
He might have done that before, he did not really remember.  
Not that he had ever been sure of anything either, except of his own genius, and was it not fascinating, how he was both a rockstar and the worst person that ever walked this earth?  
But he digressed.

The door would not open.  
That was a problem.

Ah, if only there were other ways to get into houses!

One nice, handy way would have been to call Tendo and ask him to change his plans and pick Newt up instead of bringing that lovely Latina lady home tonight; but not only did Newt owe his flatmate more than one, he had also lost his phone at some point during the night - potentially before being given chase by the enraged capybara but definitely after that unsettling encounter in the parking lot behind the supermarket.

Not letting such little setbacks deter him in his quest for a couch to sleep on, Newt connected the last two neurons not yet cheerfully drowning in dopamine.  
If there was no key to open the door, then he had to look for another solution.  
Look!  
He had to… he had to look.  
He had to _look around_.

… Right, looking around was painful.  
As if the floor wasn’t already wobbly enough to push the contents of his stomach ever so closer to a daring escape, he had to go and _turn his head_ , really? Newt, get a grip on yourself here. Or the column. Get a grip on the column that shouldn’t be there, Newt. Either way, get a grip on _something_. Just… get a grip, dude.

Newt slapped his inner monologue into silence and grabbed the column with both hands. It was wood, and solid wood, at that. It was also painted white with no peeling spot in sight. Newt didn’t remember Chuck or his Beckett Bastard of a boyfriend being so conscious of their garden decoration, but then, he did not remember them having that sort of front porch either, so that meant nothing.

(That did mean something, though.  
Some small voice was screaming at the back of his mind that all of this had to mean something, but for the love of whoever, he could not realise what.)

So, there was a door that would not open. And, to the left of that door, now conveniently placed right in the middle of his blurred field of vision, there was…  
There was…  
What were those things called, bloody hell, those things had a name, hole-in-the-wall-thing-covered-in-glass… thing… thing…  
_Window_.

And there, to the left of the door, conveniently left half-open in the warm summer night, there was a window.  
Windows were also ways to get into a house, right?  
And in houses there were couches.  
Couches on which Newt could finally crash.  
Yes.  
He was doing this.

Newt threw himself from the safety of the column to the embrace of the windowsill, reaching out a sluggish arm to push the window open, all greasy fingers spread on the glass.  
Window.  
Opened.  
Yes.  
Good.

Open window, way into the house, couch in - something that was probably a couch in sight, if sight was something Newt still had and could rely on.

How Newt actually climbed into the house would remain a mystery lost to the sands of time. There was some grabbing and a lot of cursing, but with the help of gravity - and some benevolent passing spirit, assuredly - he ended up on a couch.  
Well, it was solid but not firm and it had cushions; that enough to be called a couch in Newt’s current opinion.

It was a good idea of Chuck and Beckett Bastard to have moved their sofa right below the window like that. He’d have to thank them whenever he’d sober up, which at this point could be anywhere from twelves hours later to Thursday of the next week.  
Newt let out a long sigh and spread all over the couch. Comfort, at last. A glass of water, now, that would have been nice, but getting up was out of the question. _Absolutely_ out of the question.  
He made quick work - no, he tried to make quick work, he intended to make quick work of his clothes, but spent more time than he’d care to admit trying to remember how to unfasten his belt, then ruined his shirt getting rid of all those pesky buttons - buttons, buttons, why hadn’t he gone with a t-shirt instead of this monstrosity, but not, he had to go all dressed up, leather jacket and everything, and why were his pants so tight, seriously, that was the last time he was - the denims went flying somewhere in the darkness, along with shirt, tie, and jacket, and Newt leaned back, breathing at last.  
He had enough blackmail material not to care whether Chuck or Beckett Bastard Boyfriend found him in his underwear on their couch. Not that he’d care, really. Even sober, he didn’t care, wouldn’t care, never. He was a rockstar; a rockstar who had lost his glasses in a bet against some dude in a chiffon skirt, true, but a rockstar all the same.

The universe gave the greatest rockstar to ever live a minute or half an hour of peace, said rockstar could not tell, and then the universe sent Max.  
Newt had met Max before. Max was a cute little thing of bulge and drool, a very friendly bulldog always tagging along with Chuck.  
So it’d make sense that Max would be there to welcome Newt, although neither Chuck nor Raleigh had been home that week, right?  
At that was totally a Max thing to do to jump on his stomach, ignore his pleas for mercy and rub his head against his face.

Except that -  
Something was very wrong -  
Newt did not know, but -

But Max did not purr.  
And Max’s tail was very short and rather plump, not that long, agile thing that was tickling Newt’s nostrils.

Oh, and if Max kneaded - did Max knead? Was that a Max thing to do? - Newt was pretty sure he’d break his ribs, not feel like… some soft, fluffy, sharp-clawed harbinger of doom was digging its blades in his swollen flesh.

Newt patted Max in the darkness. No, really, that did not resemble Max as he knew him. Max’s fur was not so silky and downy. His ears were not so small and so high on his little face, the muzzle was not that big, the teeth were not that - ow! And Max did not bite, the little shit.  
“Okay, Max,” Newt slurred, running his sweaty fingers through the soft fur, “you a cat now. You a cat now? Yes, yes, you a cat now. It cool. It very cool.” Verbs were for normal people, not very cool ones like Newt. “I still love you, buddy. I’m sure Chuck and Beckett love you too. They cool too, you know? They very cool. Accepting, yeah. Of your… feline nature. Did you change name too? Should I call you something else?”  
But the pet previously known as Max the bulldog did not answer. It purred and kneaded and settled comfortably on Newt’s chubby little belly. Newt kept on rambling a little, scratching the beast previously known as Max behind the ears, slower and slower, until the last of his neurotransmitters surrendered to the effects of alcohol and he fell into a drunken slumber.

_ _ _

Hermann woke up and immediately knew that something was wrong. The apartment was too calm. He had slept too soundly.  
His thoughts immediately went to Snickers - or, rather, to the alarming lack of Snickers at his side. The cat always slept in the crook at the back of his knees, propping her little furry head at the right angle to keep his bad leg in position. Every morning, without fail, she would wake up a few minutes before Hermann’s alarm and meow him back into the waking world.  
It was Saturday, which meant no alarm - but what did cats know of calendars? She should have been there to wake him up either way.

He stretched and opened his eyes, eyelids still heavy with sleep. He had worked too late the night before, as he always did. One day, the frenzied rhythm into which he threw himself at blackboards and chalk sticks would take its toll, but for now, it quite effectively keep the loneliness at bay.  
Why, wasn’t he cheerful, for such a quiet Saturday morning?  
He considered going back to sleep, but the lack of purring concerned him. Perhaps he had forgotten to refill her little food bowl, perhaps hunger had forced her into the outside world and she was now agonising in some crack on the pavement, having been run over in her desperate quest for breakfast.  
Oh dear, he was feeling absolutely fine indeed, this was a real pleasure to see.

He pushed those thoughts away and crawled out of bed. Snickers would have meowed herself into muteness before going out for a hunt, he reminded himself as he passed his robe. He pushed the shutter of his window open, willing himself into contentment. There, the weather looked very nice, did it not? The morning light was peeking over the cityscape, dramatically illuminating the clouds over the horizon. The temperatures would probably reach yet new heights - was it not good news for him, who was always so cold? Not needing the extra layer would make quite the enjoyable difference, would it not?  
It probably would not, he decided, reaching for his cane and limping outside the room, but that was no reason to brood. He would brew himself some tea, peruse the newspaper, and then get some more w-

There was a man on his couch.

Hermann stopped right in his track, his knuckles clenching on the handle of his cane.

There was a man on his couch.  
There, a man. A stranger. In his living room. On his couch!

There, spread all over the sofa, in unabashed nakedness - Hermann had too much self-respect to step closer and check whether those darker shades were underwear or some more _tattoos_ \- there lay a man, sound asleep, Snickers curled up in a ball of black fur over his stomach.  
Of course she was. Some uncouth Visigoth had broke into his house, thrown himself at his cushions and scattered his belongings all over Hermann’s rug, and all that traitor of a cat could do was welcome him like an old friend.  
Typical.

Hermann scoffed.  
Snickers opened her green eyes, glanced at Hermann, yawned and went back to her nap.  
Hermann felt very insulted, but such was one’s life when one lived with a cat.

Well, what was he to do about the man on his couch, now? If he had been a burglar, then he would have not stayed the night, so to speak. And if he had had bad intentions, Snickers would not have accepted him so easily. For all her little quirks, that cat had always proven herself to be an excellent judge of character: she would not sleep on just any stomach. Actually, Hermann had never known her to be so friendly with strangers; it had taken her so long to warm up to him as a kitten, and now…  
Ah, was he going to be jealous of his cat’s affection for some stranger, now? Was that how low his life had fallen?

Rolling his eyes at his own childishness, Hermann hobbled to his kitchen counter. There was nothing much he could do but throw water at the man’s face from a safe distance and kindly ask him to leave, was there?  
As he looked for a sufficiently big jug, his phone vibrated back to life on the counter. Hermann postponed his watery plans and checked the blasted thing. It was an incoming message from one esteemed Tendo Choi, a fine young man Hermann did not remember giving his number to - but then, an unexpected text was far from being the most surprising thing to happen to him that morning.

‘This is a group text to all my contacts in the Shatterdome area’, the screen read, ‘My friend Newton “Newt” Geiszler had gone missing last night. . 5' 7", around 130 lbs, black hair, green eyes, inked all over. Very friendly. Likes dinosaurs and sea creatures. Mostly harmless but had a little bit too much of a drink yesterday. Was supposed to meet us up on Loccent St, probably got lost. Please let me know if you see him or a dash of black hair poking from a ditch.’

Hermann sighed and resisted the urge to facepalm.  
Englishmen did not facepalm.  
Englishmen pinched their lips, opened the camera app on their phone and snapped a picture of their unwanted guest to send back to Mr Choi.

‘Is that the individual you are looking for? -HG’ Hermann typed. ‘PS: Cat not included’, he added as an afterthought.

The answer came almost immediately.  
‘Yes, that’s him, definitely. Thank you so much! You’re Dr Gottlieb, right? From TU Berlin? Did he follow your cat home? He does that sometimes. I can’t pay for any damage he caused, but I should be able to make him properly apologise once he’s sobered up.’

Englishmen did not facepalm, Hermann reminded himself, glancing at the man on his couch. _Mostly harmless_ , the text had said.  
And then it had mentioned potential damages.  
Right.

Jug of water it was.

‘When can you come and pick him up?’ Hermann texted before putting his phone back on the counter and returning to his quest for a carafe.

Snickers woke up to the sound of the water pouring out of the faucet. She yawned, stretched her little paws and, to Hermann’s greatest satisfaction, started her morning ritual.  
When he stepped closer, one hand on his cane and the other wrapped around the handle of a carafe full to the brim with cold water, she was rubbing her furry head on Newton’s face, purring loudly.  
Hermann was not so heartless as to pour water on his own cat, no matter how treacherous and ungrateful she was. He was also looking forward to what would come next: after the rubbing and the purring, yet before the meowing, came the kneading.

Hermann knew about Snickers and her kneading.  
No living soul, no sentient being of flesh and skin could resist.  
Some cats were soft, delicate, sensible; Snickers was not.  
The silky fur and the soft meowing hid a beast of darkness and fury. She was ruthless, brutal, belligerent: she was in it for the blood and the pain, for the surge of hatred that rose in one’s heart only to melt away as one lost one’s soul in her green eyes.

She was a monster in disguise. There was, after all, a reason why she got along so well with Hermann.

Thus he waited, patiently, jug in hand, for her tiny, pointy claws to dig into Newton’s inked chest deep enough for the pain signal to reach his half-submerged neurotransmitters.  
Newton did not jump awake, sending the poor thing flying. No, he came to consciousness by waves: a flickering of the eyeballs, a twitch in the fingers, a long wheeze hissed through chapped lips. Then he opened his eyes for good, groaning and moaning, reaching up a lazy hand to heavily pet Snickers.  
“You’re… yeah you’re not Max,” he slurred, voice fuzzy and hoarse. Hermann waited. “You’re not Max at all, pal. You cute, though.” His eyes went from the cat to her human carer. Hermann could almost see the gears turning under Newton’s skulls. Pathetic. “You… You’re not Chuck,” he said slowly, “You’re too handsome and too old and too tall and too thin and not blond enough to be Chuck, and you don’t look like too much of an asshole, so you’re not Raleigh either. But you’re wearing a robe, so you prob’ live here. I didn’t know there were into threes-”  
Snickers jumped from Newton’s stomach as he twitched and jerked.  
Hermann stepped back in surprise.  
Newton brought back up whatever alcohol and junk food his body had given up on digesting.  
Hermann cursed and finally emptied his jug.

_ _ _

The next half an hour did involve some more cursing. To be fair, it involved quite a lot of it and on both sides. Hermann dragged the man into his bathroom, ignoring his loud protests. He made sure he was locked in the shower cabin and about to drown in hot water before returning his attention to the smelly mess in his living room.  
He cleaned it as best he could, praying it would not stain. Newton’s clothes, in their fortunate spread around the couch, had taken the most of it, but the fire of righteous rage burning in Hermann’s heart would not be that easily quenched.

Then Hermann wrote three very strongly worded texts to Tendo Choi on the value of genuine fair-trade Syrian carpets these days (although he only sent one), filled Snickers’ little food bowl (she was very vocal about the kibbles reaching the same exact level each morning) and fixed himself some Earl Grey.  
He drank one cup, barely waiting for his usual brewing time, and immediately poured himself another one. He gulped it down in one go as well, in the manner of a man who really wished he’d have some decent scotch on hand but still had to deal with an unwanted guest before abandoning himself to the very vice that had rendered said guest neither wanted nor sober.

At this point, Tendo Choi had answered his message, which explained why Hermann needed to keep himself busy, lest he committed murder. The man, that Newton Geiszler, was to stay with him until the afternoon! Hermann could not possibly throw him out - that would have been the exact opposite of proper; was he not supposed to show that he held the moral upper ground?  
Armed with rubber gloves and a plastic bag, he made a little bundle of Newton’s clothes for him to take back home, and stopped by his bedroom to grab something for the man to wear instead. Hermann could not have one of his _esteemed guests_ leave in his underwear, now, could he?  
(The fact that said underwear sported the Enterprise from _Star Trek_ \- no, Hermann’s mind was drawing a blank. He absolutely refused to think about spaceship-adorned underwear.)

Hermann stood in front of his closet and considered his options. He would go for an undershirt and that monochrome flannel Miss Mori had forgotten after her last visit - he knew she would not miss it much, and he was not letting Newton near his button-up shirts with a ten foot pole - but it was obvious that none of his trousers would fit the man.  
Newton was… chubby, for the lack of a better word. Hermann was not.  
Hermann also valued his tweed and corduroy too much to see them stretched and scratched by those thighs that were thicker than… that were very thick.  
Not that he actually expected to see those clothes back again either. If that meant never ever having to lay his eyes on Newton Geiszler, he would not mourn them too much.

Well, being resolved into lending something was nice and all, but he still had no idea what would fit the man. He did not have any sweatpants, swim wear, shorts, or whatever it was that young people wore these days.  
What he did have, though, what he did have… Yes. His eyes looked up to a dust-covered plastic box at the top of the wardrobe. He still had that one.  
He hadn't worn it in twenty years - it had always been too large for him, which was sort of the point, really - and he would never wear it again. He mostly kept it for nostalgia's sake, a discreet reminder that he had once gone that far just to spite his father.  
He took the thing out of the box, shook it a little, grimacing at the amount of dust that escaped in the sunbeam; at least it smelled of lavender and not moth repellent. It was not as - it did not look as rebellious as he remembered it to be. It was still dark red, and very ample, burgundy linen with a black trim. A _sarouel_ , it was called, or so Hermann thought. He had been, what, sixteen? Seventeen? All he had cared about had been his father’s scowl and Vanessa’s encouraging laughter.  
Ah, the vanity of youth.

That suited that Newton fellow well, too. The vanity of youth.

Hermann folded the clothes in a neat little pile, braced himself, opened the bathroom door and left the pile on the sink. He tuned out the horrifying screams that escaped the shower cabin (and were in all likelihood supposed to be singing) and stepped out as fast as he could.

Newton emerged from a world of steam and warmth a moment later, hair dripping wet, clean and smelling of roses.  
(Englishmen used fancy soaps their ex-wives sent them for Christmas.  
Yes.  
They did.  
It would have been wasteful not to.)

Hermann looked up from his newspaper. He had taken to sit on the armchair, refusing to use the couch until he had the time and energy to clean it properly. Newton was wearing the clothes he had lent him: Mako’s flannel was a bit too short, the undershirt a bit too tight but the sarouel fit just right.  
Hermann tried really hard not to feel anything at the thought that they suited Newton much better than they had him.

Newton himself looked confused, sleepy, lost. He was surveying the living room as if he never had seen such a place before, ever, in all the houses where he had already stepped. His eyes went to the shelves, stacked with books to the brim, to the tall lamp behind the armchair and the pre-raphaelites reproductions on the walls. He surveyed the neat stack of science magazines on the elegant coffee table, next to the fresh lilies in their somber vase and the well-cared for succulents on the windowsill. He glanced at the lace doilies, the gramophone and the vinyl records, the little cushions for Snickers to sleep on all around the room.  
Then it dawned on his face, and it was painful to watch, really, but also mesmerising; the way his green eyes widened and his lips parted as he rose one slow hand to his paling forehead.

"Oh, shit," he said. "This is not Chuck's house. This is not Chuck's house at all. Shit, dude, you're not Chuck or Raleigh or their mysterious new boyfriend, shit, shit," he repeated, hand slowly sliding over his eyes, "and that's why it was a cat, and not Max, shit, shit, I'm such a terrible asshole, man, I'm-"  
"Quite," Hermann interrupted, politeness be damned. "Your friend will come and pick you up in the afternoon. Clearly, you should get some more rest," he advised, turning his attention back to his newspaper, clearly signalling that this was the end of the discussion.  
That didn’t keep Newton from rambling his way back to the couch, painful step after painful step. To his credit, some of those ramblings did include grateful apologies and Hermann dutifully noted to acknowledge them whenever he would feel less spiteful enough to do so.

Newton let himself fall on the couch with a heavy thud. Hermann winced. There were _springs_ in that thing, for god’s sake. He was about to let him know how strongly he felt about those with a scathing remark, but even he was not so heartless as to admonish the little man on his couch, who was mumbling into the glass of water he’d left for him on the coffee table.  
Once he was sure that Newton had fallen back into slumber - the soft snores were a tell-tale sign, and so was the cute little way Snickers appeared out of thin air and onto the man's stomach again - Hermann let go of his newspaper and went to fetch his laptop.  
Newton Geiszler, this Mr Choi had said.  
He hadn't thought about it too much, but now that he had had some time to settle down - the name did ring a faint bell.  
Hermann sat back on his armchair with some more tea and his computer. It was just a hunch, but…

Yes, Newton Geiszler.  
_Doctor_ Newton Geiszler.  
That was where Hermann had seen that name before, in lists of contributors for science papers.

An hour later, his tea had long gone cold and the computer was uncomfortably heating up his lap, but Hermann was still reading. If anyone had told him… No, he would not have believed them. How could the man sleeping on his couch, the very man who had climbed through his window mistaking it for the house down the block and across the street, how could he be the author of so many publications, in so many different fields. Yet he was. He truly was. There was only one Newton Geiszler - Hermann had checked.  
Astounding.

He looked up from his computer.  
The bright light of the summer sun filtered through the curtains, pouring in a thin coat of silver and gold over the sleeping form on the couch in a mess of limbs, tattoos and black hair.  
Newt was laying on his back, one arm lost above his head, the other around Snickers, who used his wrist as her pillow. (Was it not a little unusual to see her so affectionate with a stranger?)  
The bright, colourful ink on his skin was dancing in the sunbeams, monsters and sea creatures clawing their way out of the rolled sleeves of the black and grey flannel, peeking out of the collar of the white undershirt. He was snoring softly, Snickers moving along the rhythmic rise and fall of his breathing.  
There was not another sound in the room, save for the low humming of Hermann’s computer and the distant rumour of the street.  
Time stood still.  
The afternoon spread over centuries. Hermann put the computer away, leaning back in his armchair and focusing on simply being there, enjoying the moment in all its strangeness.  
Even in the comfort of his own home, there was always some book to read, some problem to solve, some work to do. When was the last time he had felt at such peace?

Hermann was jolted awake by the sound of his doorbell. Snickers jumped from his lap. He did not remember when she’d finally recalled who her actual carer was, or when he had fallen asleep himself.  
He got up in a haze and opened the door to one Tendo Choi, going through the motions of greeting him and letting him inside while massaging the painful crick in his neck. 

Newton left far faster and with far less complaining that Hermann had expected. And if after his departure the house felt a little lonelier, a little emptier, perhaps, well… Such was life. Snickers leapt through the window and followed along until the corner of the street. Hermann went to reheat his tea, fix himself some food and get to work.

Things were back to normal, were they not?  
He was quite content to be alone at last, was he not?

Was he not?

Yes, he was, thank you very much; he had enough of unwanted guests for the rest of his life, really.

Said life went on, so that when someone rang his bell a week later, Hermann did not expect to open his door to the very man he had made such a conscious effort to forget.

“Hi,” Newton said. “I’m Newt, we met last week? I sort of broke into your house?”  
“Hello, yes, I remember,” Hermann answered, clad in robe and not pushing the door more open that strictly necessary. “Did you forget anything?”  
“Oh, no, I just came to apologise? And to thank you for not throwing me out and things. Oh, and the clothes. I came to give you your clothes back, here. Thank you so much, it’s so kind of you to… ”

Hermann took the package that was handed to him. While he patiently waited for the man to stop babbling in order to bid him a good Saturday and return to his own, Snickers slithered her way between Hermann’s legs. Newt crouched, scratching her little head as she purred him a friendly welcome. The scene could have been endearing, had Newton been a _friend_ , but he was not; how could Hermann ever suffer someone so talkative, anyway? That was…

“… wrong, so dude, I can’t believe you were so wrong.” Newt was saying, Snickers now in his arms, rubbing her face against his cheeks.  
“I beg your pardon?”  
“Your paper on spectral leakage. You got it all wrong. It’s a common mistake, too, so I won’t hold it against you, but…” Hermann made a conscious effort to clench his jaw, lest it fell to the ground. The gall of that man! “... show it to you?” 

He blinked. In his outrage, he had not realised Newton was still talking. 

“What-”  
“The data. It’s on my USB stick. Let me in, show me your computer, take your cat from my arms, just kidding, you’ll pry her from my cold body, but yeah, I have everything, it’s in my back pocket. Let me in and we can discuss that, alright?” Newt grinned in a way that made Hermann’s frown deepen.  
“I am not fishing anything-”  
“No! What? Of course not! But I can’t let poor little Luna here-”  
“Her name is Snickers.”

Hermann gave in and stepped aside to let Newton in. Better discuss the cat than tarry any longer on that little misunderstanding of his. 

“Snickers?” Newt repeated, laughing, “Sni… ckers? Your cat? Snickers?”  
“She was a rescue,” he explained, leading him to the living room, “and old enough to know her own name.”  
“And you didn’t have the heart to change it? Awww!”  
“Something of the like, yes. What was it that you wished to show me?” He asked, reaching out for his laptop on the coffee table.  
“Oh yeah, let me just…” 

Before they knew it, Newt was sitting on the couch with Snickers on his lap, drinking tea and eating biscuits. The day went by in the blink of an eye. They bickered over graphs and spreadsheets, argued about equations and kibble brands. They had lunch together, then afternoon tea, then dinner; always quarreling and talking and sharing and having fun, in a way, bouncing off the other and forcing him to keep up. 

When Newt left, he tip-toed and brushed his lips past Hermann’s cheek before leaving in a hastened pace not quite unlike running away.  
Hermann stood in the doorway for a while, then slowly made his way inside, very much looking forward to the next Saturday. 

**Author's Note:**

> Well, that was super fun to write, I hope you enjoyed it!  
> Many thanks to [@johnnyfuckingappleseed](http://johnnyfuckingappleseed.tumblr.com/) for their beta-reading and that title idea, as well as to you for reading. Let me know what you thought in the comments, have a nice day, and a nice Thanksgiving for those of you in the US!


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